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The Trip Of A Lifetime That You Can Do Too

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Find out more on page three…

I look at this guy, whom I’ve known all of 24 hours, to check whether he’s playing a prank on me which would result in this pesky windsurfing kook getting locked up by immigration. But no the loud stamp on my passport suggests I’m actually just heading off to something out of Dr Who.

Aerial view of the islands and the boys and Vickey on the tiny plane…

‘Ok guys weigh in time, we can only take as much equipment as the plane can physically carry and that includes your persons’ Martin Daly (the owner and brains behind the Marshall islands set up) is busy running around shouting instructions at us, the ground crew and the person on the other end of his phone; thank God somebody has this circus organised. He’s trying to get all the equipment, the supplies and us onto the local plane (minus some seats so we can squeeze in more gear) for the 45min hop to his part of paradise. The swell is pumping and it’s important to him that we get some waves under our belt today.

As we touchdown on a tiny strip of dirt (which requires a vivid imagination to call a runway), then off load the plane ourselves, I start to get an idea of what’s to come. As Martin has wasted no time getting us out to the first reef pass I feel it my duty to oblige him. Thus I leap off the boat into the crystal clear, warm water and paddle into perfectly peeling glassy right hander’s whilst watching the sun sinking behind some gently swaying palm trees as the darkening sky assumes that typical pastel orange hue of a tropical sunset.

Vickey Abbott

I guess you’ll all be really disappointed to hear that the next 14 days are spent in similar bliss; surfing and windsurfing various perfect empty waves. The waves are predominantly right hand breaks, breaking into reef passes with moderate side – side offshore winds.

Marshall Islands surfing

Despite my initial apprehension about tagging along with such a talented and knowledgeable group my fears were quickly a laid, first of all there was no time to think about it, living in such close proximity to everyone there isn’t much room for being self conscious. As I leapt out of my bunk each morning poor Bernd had to dodge my footprint being stamped on his head and I had to put up with a group of smelly men and their gaseous entertainments. Secondly the loud and encouraging whoops and cheers that emanated from the line up were good enough to get everyone frothing.

The guy’s passion and dedication to our sport was remarkable all of them were constantly testing and tweaking whilst brain storming over new and innovative ways to improve the equipment. Plus, it was pretty impressive to lay witness to the displays of aerials, wave 360s, takas and barrels galore.

For those of you thinking: well that all sounds lovely but ‘I’m not into big waves’, ‘I couldn’t take the family’ or ‘it sounds like a logistical nightmare’, think again.

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